NHC Privacy Statement

This policy establishes how the National Hurricane Center will use information we gather about you from your visit to our website. The privacy of our customers is of utmost importance to the NHC.

If you visit the NHC website...

a. To read or download information with a web browser:

We collect and log information from our webservers for statistical purposes. For example, we count the number of visitors to the different sections of our site. This helps us make the site more useful to visitors. The information collected is limited to the information logged by our webservers. Here is an example of a typical entry from our server logs, with explanations of the information gathered:

0.0.0.0 - - [12/Nov/2000:01:26:37 +0000] GET /gifs/noaaleft.jpg HTTP/1.0
200 1499 http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT)

• Client IP Number (0.0.0.0) This is the number assigned to your computer by your ISP when you connected to the Internet.
• Date/Time of Request ([12/Nov...) Local time for our server.
• Specific Server Request (GET ...) This is what you are asking for.
• Internet Protocol (HTTP/1.0) This is how your browser wants to talk to us
• Status Code & Item Size in kilobytes (200 1499) This is what our server reported about the transfer and how big it was.
• Referring Web Address (http://...) This is the web address in your browser at the time of the request.
• Client Browser and Computer Operating System (Mozilla/4.0...) This is what you are using to browse the Web.

In this case a client connected to the Internet with IP number 0.0.0.0 using Microsoft Internet Explorer^® on a Windows NT^® system requested the NOAA logo "noaaleft.jpg" that decorates the NHC homepage. (Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows NT are trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation).

The webserver logs from the NHC are produced by our parent organizations, the National Centers for Environmantal Prediction http://www.ncep.noaa.gov, and NOAA. The logs are used in studies of web traffic and load patterns, the popularity of our various text and graphics products and other general statistical analyses.

We do not set or use browser "cookies" in any form or fashion at the NHC website.

Browser "cookies" are records stored by webservers on a client's computer. Cookies are often used to record information about a user's visit to a website.

b. To send us an E-mail:

By sending us an electronic mail message, you may be sending us personal information (e.g., name, address, E-mail address). We may store the name and address of the requester in order to respond to the request or to otherwise resolve the subject matter of your E-mail. At most this data is held for six months, then deleted.

c. To register for the automated tropical cyclone advisory email:

To register for our advisory email, we ask visitors to fill out an on-line registration form. We require only that a valid email address be used to register. This information is stored on the email server. No copies of your email address are made other than routine backups of the email server software. Your email registration is not made available to any other systems. We calculate statistical information such as total number of subscribers from the subscriber lists, but no individual information is included in these reports. Individual subscribers control their subscriptions to the service, and their email address is automatically deleted from the system when they cancel their subscriptions. Only active subscriber email addresses are kept on the server. No long-term records of deleted subscribers are kept.

We want to be very clear on this: regardless of the information being transmitted to the NHC, we will protect all such information consistent with applicable law.